The number of forcibly displaced people has grown from 33.9 million in 1997 to 65.6 million persons in 2016 due in large part to conflicts in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. The rise in conflict globally has resulted in the occurrence of 20 displacements per minute last year and a new record high for the total number of people affected by displacement. In 2015, there were 22.5 million recorded refugees, which is roughly the population of Australia, 24% of whom were survivors of torture and/or violence.

Disasters were responsible for 23.5 million new displacements in 2016, with 97% caused by weather and climate-related events. Almost 12.9 million displacements across the globe were resultant from the impact of storms such as Hurricane Matthew, which caused over 1 million people to be evacuated in Cuba alone. More countries are participating in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) resettlement programme. A total of 189,000 resettlements took place in 2016, with largest instances of programme admission coming from the U.S. and Canada. Despite the increase in resettlement quotas, there is a great gap as 1.19 million people remain in need of resettlement.

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